Theory IV: Who is the Commander

“What is a Commander?” is the topic that greets commanders from Basic to Master as they enter the command forum. However, the question and answers therein should be more along the lines of “Who?” than ”What?”. Who, because the commander is a person. The commander is a symbol. The commander often is the face of the team he leads. He is the one in the heat of battle on the field as well as the one in the fires of organization and control of where the team goes and when off the field and even what the team may eat.
When asked “Who is a Commander?” Don’t jump to an answer. You can’t really. The commander is, of course, a person. A person that has the respect of his team. He’s also a unit in his own right. One that can fill in practically all possible combat positions. He is a jack of all trades, a marksman and a spray-and-pray kind of guy, an Ambush and a Dagger, a friend and an enemy. He isn’t just one thing, and he never will be.
A commander possesses not only a wide berth of skills on and off the paintball field, but also an uncommon passion for the team and game.
Skills aren’t always the straightest shot or the fastest finger. They aren’t always running or diving or jumping, they sometimes are things that aren’t even related to the marker that each player holds. Command units possess non-combat skills from each of the six SpecOps combat positions. These skills are Adaptability, Teamwork, Cunning, Risk, Knowledge, Commitment, Empathy and Personal Courage.
This is the first skill a commander should have: Adaptability. A commander must be able to take any role on in the team he is currently on as well as lead it. This skill is often associated with Sabers, as they fill in quite a few roles on the field. If a commander is not adaptable, then he has no business being a commander. Stubborn players make bad commanders.
Then comes the second: Teamwork. Command units must be able to coordinate people from just another player to five hundred players. They are the lifeblood of a team that centers on their advice and orders. With a weak commander, the team suffers. This usually is because the commander begins to pick sides when he should remain neutral and try to work through the problem with both sides. Teamwork means that there is a group together. There truly is no “I” in it, nor is there an “I” in commander.
The commander must also be Cunning. His cunning becomes a benefit to his team who enjoy the game more as he comes up with more and more devious plans. They play better because they are looking forward to the next creative order or idea that the commander invents. Like the Ambush, the cunning commander can invent his own cover and plans that he can use to gain the upper hand in any situation. Also, he can think quickly and make decisions. This is a part of the skill that comes with time.
The commander must be willing to Risk not only himself and his team, but also his own personal image to other players on the field. If his team does badly, he looks bad. If his team does well, he looks better. This is one of the harder aspects of command, the fact that if your team hits a losing streak, you lose respect from others. This is a horrible feeling that disables a lot of good commanders early in their careers or puts them as on/off commanders that are overshadowed by other members of their team who eventually take up command, and sometimes don’t do as well.
Knowledge is power, and the Command and Javelin know this. The Command must learn not only a specialized set of tactics and orders that work with a varied and changing group of people and conditions, but also about his own skills and markers that he carries. He needs to know about his team and his enemy, about all the conditions on the field and off and how they play together to grant one side an advantage. Synthesizing all of this knowledge together into useful information is a skill honed through months of play and learning. The command learns as he goes by expanding his mind through not only military and paintball reading, but also pursuing his own personal likes and dislikes off the field. After all, the commander must be exposed to a lot of experiences off the field so he can adapt quickly, as such he should be able to on the field.
His Commitment must also be second to none. Committed unconditionally is how the Command should be to his team and objectives. His commitment must come at all costs, his focus never broken and his mind set on where he must go and what his team must do to reach those goals. The Broadswords and Hammers are not known for breaking games like Daggers and Sabers, but they are known for their commitment to their commander and the objectives he gives. This is how the Command should respond to the objectives he is given. He shall accept nothing less than that from himself.
The final two skills are rare, and those that gain the respect of their team without bribery, boasting or forcing are in possession of these skills. Empathy and Personal Courage are the mark of a commander. These are not born into a person or put on them by society, but are a part of the person. The empathetic commander does not issue ridiculous orders to his units unless he himself would attempt the same maneuver. This is Empathy: putting yourself in another’s boots, if even for a few seconds.
Personal Courage is the courage to give the orders. A Command doesn’t second guess himself. He trusts himself and his team enough that they can accomplish what they set out to do. His personal courage attacks the enemy as its own force, encouraging his team on to greater and greater heights.
A commander is also someone that has a unique passion for the game and his team. It isn’t always necessarily someone who eats sleeps and breathes paint; it’s often something of a combination. It is marked by a reverence of the game and a brotherhood between himself and the members of his team. Passion doesn’t mean that he lives for it, but it becomes a part of him. A part of who he is, and people that don’t play know it. This passion is unique because the person will continue, rain or shine or sleet or snow onto the field against any odds at any time because he is a part of the game, as much as it is a part of him.
You can see it in some people. They talk giddily to others about their teammates and how good they’re becoming. Becoming, not are. This passion isn’t an ego, it’s more of the knowledge of improvement. He plays to improve himself and the members of his team. They work together and live together and meet together and the command loves it because he is with them and they are getting better. Even if the team drifts apart, a team that has had this kind of command stays together as friends and in contact with one another long after they’ve stopped playing. This brotherhood is the best explanation of this passion.
In essence, a commander is a person who can adapt and be happy. He can lead and people follow him because they trust him, not because he threatens to shoot them if they don’t do it. His teammates aren’t just teammates, they’re brothers. He exists within the game and people can see it, and like it. He is a friend, the glue of the team and a person that other players are soon not to forget.